The Promised Queen

𝒻𝑜𝓇𝓉𝓎 𝓈𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃

RIDHIMA

For a long time after Dev uncle stopped speaking, I couldn't breathe.
The story sat heavy in the air between us — a story of love, loss, and choices that had changed everything for the three people who still lived under the same roof yet stood oceans apart.

I didn't know what to say. My mind was still replaying every word, every pause in his voice when he spoke of Rani-sa... of Hruday. Of the things that could never be undone.

Now I finally understood them.

Rani-sa — her quiet grace that often felt cold, the way her eyes lingered on Avni as if protecting something fragile, the way her tone hardened whenever Hruday was mentioned. She had once lost a child before it even came into the world — a wound that time could never truly close. And the child she had lost was tied forever to the boy who was still grieving his own mother, a boy who couldn't find comfort in a father who had drowned himself in sorrow.

How could they not have grown apart?

How could any of them have survived that kind of pain without breaking somewhere inside?

I suddenly saw it all — Hruday's constant restraint, his protectiveness over Avni that he tries so hard to hide. His anger, his restlessness, the way his eyes soften when he thinks no one is watching.

And Rani-sa's measured distance — a woman who wanted to love her husband's son, but couldn't without reopening her own wounds.

The three of them — Dev uncle, Rani-sa, and Hruday — had all carried the same grief, only in different silences.

And the palace that looked so grand from the outside had been a house full of lonely hearts.

I looked at Dev uncle then. He was staring at the roses, his hands still around the shears but unmoving. The sunlight made his face look older than I remembered. His eyes, too.

"I failed them," he said suddenly, as if the words had been waiting for release. "I failed everyone, Ridhima. I was a king, but not a father. Not a husband. I let my grief rule me, when I should've been the one keeping this family together."

His voice trembled, and I felt a sting in my chest.

"Maybe you did," I said softly. "But Dev uncle, that's what being human is — making mistakes. Wrong choices. Letting pain cloud what really matters."

I met his gaze, hoping he could hear what I truly meant. "If we spend our whole lives regretting those choices, we'll never have time to redeem them. And you... you still have time. Rani-sa is still here. Hruday is here. Avni too. You can still bring them together. Because no matter how fr we drift apart... we are still family. Family is always family."

For a moment, he just looked at me — his eyes searching mine, as if weighing the truth in my words. Then his expression softened, the faintest smile tugging at his lips.

"You're right," he said quietly. "Family... is always family."

His hand reached for mine, warm and trembling. "And you're part of ours now, Ridhima."

Something in me shifted at those words. A strange ache, a quiet warmth that filled the space between guilt and hope.

I smiled back, though my throat felt tight. "Thank you, Dev uncle."

The garden had grown quiet again — the kind of quiet that feels sacred.

I looked toward them — toward the home that now held more stories, more pain, and more love than I had ever realized.
And for the first time, I didn't feel like an outsider.